Wandering Through The Pines
by Supernova1219
Summary: A recap of the events of season 1, through the eyes of our little girl. (one-shot, was proud enough of this to post it here as my first story, so let me know what y'all think!)


**Hey everyone. This story was** **initially** **a project that i had to do for a class, but i felt proud enough of it to have it be my first** **upload** **on this here website. I hope to do more stories in the future, but this story is** **essentially** **a recap of the event of season 1 through our little girl's eyes. the ending is a bit of a deviation from the implied ending of the game however. I'm ultimately looking for constructive criticism of course. enjoy this one-shot for the time being!**

* * *

I wasn't quite sure how I had managed it. Getting out of the city, I mean. In all actuality I had expected to be eaten alive as soon as i stepped foot outside that jewelry store. I guess I had spent so much time weeping that enough time had passed for most of the walkers to disperse. Oh, right, I should probably explain what I mean by that, shouldn't I?

The walkers appeared all over the world in what seemed to be a few short days. Flesh eating corpses that seemed to want nothing more than to tear into the first sign of life they could smell, see or hear. Later on i had learned that the reasoning behind such a quick and spontaneous epidemic was because it wasn't the bite that caused you to turn, It was death itself. At least, any form of death that doesn't involve destroying the brain. My group and I learned this a few weeks into the outbreak the hard way, as one of the people we had tried to save via amputation had lost too much blood and ended up turning just moments after he had been declared dead. Katjaa had almost died, if not for Lee saving her.

Lee…my guardian, and my savior…

He found me, when all of this began. The first night of the outbreak, a man had broken into my house and tried to attack my babysitter, Sandra. My parents had went on a vacation to Savannah and had left me with her. I didn't understand until later that it was actually a walker and that Sandra had been bitten in the process of defending me. She had sent me up to my tree-house with enough food and water to last me a couple of days, after she had managed to fend off the walker, and told me to stay up there until she came back…

She never did.

A few days later, most of the screaming had stopped, and it just seemed to be dead silence. I was too terrified to look outside and I had just about completely run out of food. I had been completely derived of sleep as a result of being rattled by the prior days of screaming and chaos. So when I heard the loud bang of a shotgun a few yards from where I was i decided it was time to see if anyone may be able to help me, as by this point i figured Sandra was...gone.

That's when I first laid eyes on him. Apparently the gunshot was from him defending himself from a turned cop. It seemed as though he had been in a car crash and by the looks of things, he wasn't doing too great. Now, you have to understand, i'm only nine. Eight at the time of this specific event, so when i saw a man covered in injuries, wielding a gun with a crazed and dazed look in his eye, I turned heel and ran back to my tree-house. He had seen me though, and had tried to call for me, but I had been too scared to turn back. I hid in my tree-house and a little while later, he made his way to my backyard.

He had simply been looking for help, but at the time I hadn't known that. I spied on him through the cracks in my tree-house, waiting to see his intentions at my home, which seemed to be innocent enough. He made his way inside my house (the door was unlocked as a result of the frantic nature of that night) and called out for help once more. He didn't seem to understand that noise attracted them, so I decided I may as well try to shush him with the walkie that Sandra gave me before re-entering the house. He found the other one and we began to make introductions.

After a while of learning about each other, I decided I could trust him. He seemed nice enough, and only seemed to want to make sure I was okay after learning about my presence. Right before I could make my way down, however, a now turned and decaying Sandra stumbled out of the hallway and attacked him. He managed to get away just in time and as I got to the door, i quickly opened it and threw him a hammer. Time slowed for both of us as he 'took care of' Sandra. After that was done and over with, he asked me about my condition, and if I had been alone through all of this. I told him everything that had happened and from that moment on, he swore to take care of me. Looking after me and protecting me, up until the bitter end.

The bitter...bitter end.

We went through everything together. He protected me from horrors beyond imagining on so many occasions, and what did I do? I got him killed. We had went to Savannah in the vain hope of finding a boat, as that had been our groups plan. On the way there I had picked up a transmission on my walkie-talkie, which both Lee and I had thought was broken. Turns out it wasn't, and I ended up conspiring with this stranger who told me he had my parents with him.

How ignorant i was to believe him! I should've just listened to Lee and understood that my parents were gone. He told me himself that the city was dead, and i still went out in the hope they would be there. Lee never knew about the stranger, so he had no lead to go on when i turned up missing. All he had was my hat and the walkie talkie.

Yet...he still found me. He _died_ for me in the end. Some little girl he barely even knew. He ended the stranger and shortly after our reunion, he decided the only way to get me out of Savannah would be to cover me in walker guts and walk through the herd. They need to smell you to truly know you're human, so what happens if you just...block the smell? They cant detect you. It was pretty foolproof, if you just keep moving. He covered me and began to usher me down the dark streets of Savannah, quietly encouraging me to keep moving and to stay calm. This had worked up until I laid eyes on an image that will forever be burned into my mind.

There, standing not even 25 feet away, were my parents. Eyes dead and glazed, clawing at the sky in some confused conviction to reach for something to shove into their stomachs. I froze in place, looking on in terror and anguish as the last bits of hope i had for them died out. I heard Lee attempt to utter something to me, but all i heard was "Clem...dont…" before he collapsed to the street floor. At this I finally realized I couldn't stand there any longer and knew I had to figure out how to get Lee and I somewhere safe. I'm not sure how I managed it, but I had been able to drag him into the nearest storefront on the street and quickly locked the shutter in place behind us so it wouldn't so much as budge.

He woke up a short time later, and comforted me as best he could before embracing and holding me for what seemed like an eternity captured in one single moment. After I had mostly calmed myself, he then decided to show me what had been causing his blackouts and extreme weakness. And guess what? It was what I feared most.

A bite.

A walker bite.

A tried and true death sentence.

I began to freak out once more. The full weight of what was happening quickly dawning on me. Lee was dying. Everyone else was already dead, and now Lee was dying too, all because I got reckless. It was too sudden for me to accept at first, whimpering to myself and repeating no as many times as I could, but I knew all along how this would end. He began to teach me anything he could in that short time he had left in that jewelry store. How to use a gun, how to get away, all sorts of little bits of advice to help me survive. "Keep that hair short, too easy to grab." "stay away from cities, they're nothing but trouble." all of these statements storing themselves at the forefront of my mind, so that I may never forget his voice. Because only a short few moments later, we were saying our final goodbyes, and I was raising the gun to his head.

"I'll miss you"

"Me too"

* _ **BANG***_

It was over. I had escaped the city and was trudging along some empty field, barely noticing anything i passed by. How could I when my eyes are still blinded fresh tears? I wasn't sure how long I had been walking, but I knew I had to be miles from Savannah at this point. I had been traveling for hours, and only knew that I was going back the way we came. Following the railroad tracks we had used to get here. My legs were unbelievably weak, and all I wanted to do was lay down on the cold ground and pay for my sins, but Lee wouldn't want that.

He'd want me to go on. To survive and try to make it in this world. He wouldn't want me to just give up like some coward. I won't accept disappointing him. I can't. He gave his life for mine, and if i die now, what would the point have been? So I continue on, moving past building after building, forest after forest, hoping and praying that I may find some sort of safe haven or moment of respite.

For the longest time I've been alone. Two years, can you believe it? I haven't been able to find anyone in this barren wasteland once known as America in most of that time. The few encounters i did have with groups did not end well, either with me running away with bullets whizzing past my head or barely sneaking out of their captivity. Lee had told me not to trust people. With all the experience I've had now, I've got no issue with that philosophy. I've been without people I can actually trust all this time, and it begins to wear on you. I see things and jump at the slightest noise. Paranoia comes pre-packaged with the apocalypse I guess, but I haven't got anyone looking out for me period.

This changed one cool Spring morning.

I had found a gas-station to camp out at on my travels and when morning came around I was awoken to a slight jostle. I dazedly looked up at whatever was trying to grab my attention and when I was finally able to awaken myself enough, I saw that it was a man who looked to be in his mid twenties. I quickly bolted away from him before he could react, and grabbed my gun from my waistband and trained my sights on him.

"Who are you!?" I yelled in a pitiful, weakened voice. I hadn't spoken in a very long time, so it was kind of foreign to me, hearing my own voice after so long. He looked at me in surprise and quickly put his hands up, not expecting such a quick reaction from such a tired, seemingly weak 11 year old girl.

"Hey kid, it's okay! You don't need to worry about anything...I was just checking to see if you were still alive. You looked just about dead, layin' there like that so...to be honest i was worried." He looked to be genuinely sincere in his reasoning, giving me a side smile and keeping his hands raised.

I kept my gun trained on him, examining his appearance. He was wearing an orange sweater with a pair of bluejeans and a harness that held a machete on his back. I was only able to do this for a few more moments however, before he finally took the gun from my shaking hands without a fight. It had been so long since I had met anyone else that even the slightest hint of peaceful interaction was enough to make me jump for joy. As he removed the gun from my hands, I asked him what his name was and he quickly replied with, "Luke".

He said it with a smile, which I returned with my own. He looked down for a moment before looking back up to me with another smile, putting my pistol to the side. "Well, kid, how would you like to come meet my people?" I gave him an unsure look, clearly demonstrating my past experiences with strangers, to which he saw and continued with "I know it's hard to trust people, I can't imagine what you've been through, but I promise you that all of my people are good. We look after each other. You'd have a place there, and we're always looking for new people. I mean, it already looks like you can handle a gun, so you'd have a big role to play in our community." he said it with a strong conviction, like he could see my potential there.

I mulled the concept around in my head for a moment, deciding that, for some reason, I trusted this man. If he came from a group of people as charismatic as himself, then maybe it would be alright. He continued on with "look, you're tired and weak, i can see that. I'm sure you'd like to get some food and drink in you at the very least. How does that sound?" I had to admit, he was right. There was no way i was gonna go much longer without anything to eat. I had been starved for days before this and i was just about completely out of energy. I looked up to him with a confirming smile "I'd like that".

He gave me a large toothy grin and asked me what my name was as he handed my gun back to me and we made our way outside to his truck. I turned to him with a light in my golden eyes as I decided i had nothing to lose by telling him.

"Its Clementine"


End file.
